An extraordinary stroke of good fortune and impatience to get home saved a Swedish football team from death on Germanwings flight 4U 9525 when they chose to fly alternative routes over the Alps from Barcelona.
After a week’s training in Spain, it was time on Tuesday for Dalkurd FF, a third-division Swedish side, to return to Stockholm.
With a choice of four morning flights to take them to Germany and Switzerland and then on to Sweden, the team’s 29 members spread themselves among three aircraft.
The fourth, the ill-fated Germanwings flight to Düsseldorf, crashed killing all on board.
“We were actually all due to fly on that plane,” said the team’s director, Adil Kizil. The flight was cheaper, and all 29 members of the squad could have flown together, he said. Given the 10-hour wait they faced in Düsseldorf for their onward connection, they chose instead to split up and fly via Munich and Zurich.
“Four aircraft left at around the same time and flew north over the Alps, and we had players on three of them. You could say we were very, very lucky,” Kizil said. “You could say it is destiny.”
All the passengers on flight 4U 9525 were at the same check-in with the Dalkurd team, some of whom also departed from the same gates. “It’s freaky. And very, very sad,” Kizil said.
When his flight landed in Munich he had 200 missed calls. “That’s when we realised that something had happened.”
A frantic 40 minutes ensued as they tried to find out which of the four flights had crashed, and then whether anyone from the team had been onboard the doomed aircraft.
Striker Erik Törnros heard about the crash when he landed in Zurich. “Damn, I was jittery,” he said. Other team members assumed he was dead. “They thought it was us who had crashed, because we had said we would leave at nine. Completely crazy.”
Dalkurd’s goalkeeper, Frank Petersen, tweeted on Wednesday: “The things you take for granted, someone else is praying for. Be grateful.”
The Dalkurd team, which plays in Börlange in the Dalarna region of central Sweden, was set up 11 years ago by Kurdish immigrants to Sweden. It has experienced a dizzying climb though Sweden’s system of 10 divisions, achieving promotion seven times.
The team maintains a strong Kurdish identity and has a high profile among Kurds the world over. “Because Kurds have no country of their own, it is like a Kurdish national team,” Kizil said, noting also that the side currently has players from 13 different nationalities.
The club’s website states: “In Dalkurd we look beyond people’s origins and skin colour. Together, we are neither immigrants nor Swedes. We are people with a desire to gain attention and influence, on the football field and in society.”
The team tweeted on Tuesday night: “We send our deepest condolences to all the victims of today’s horrific tragedy in France. May you rest in peace.”
Vi sänder våra djupaste kondoleanser till alla de drabbade av dagens hemska tragedi i Frankrike. Må ni vila i frid. #4U9525
— Dalkurd FF (@DalkurdFF) March 24, 2015
Dalkurd’s coach, Andreas Brännström, said of Tuesday’s fatal crash: “It is a tragedy for many people, and we are the luckiest in all of this.”
